Yourself?

GEP and being gifted

So now there has been a number of posts on the newspapers discussing the GEP programme, and whether it's good or bad, blah blah blah. As someone who has graduated, and look back upon those days fondly, I feel obliged to write about what I feel GEP is all about.

GEP to every student is a really different experience. We are all labelled "Gifted", but we are all individuals as well, and "gifted" at different things. Everyone in the world is gifted in some way or another, and we are also part of that world. The fact that there is a program for us, identified as such by academic testing, is our good fortune. However, it is really no different from other programmes, like sports schools, or cooking academies, or hairdressing.

GEP is really about accelerated growth, because the people they've identified, have abilties that may be a year or two better developed than their peers. GEP is also an experiment for the education system, and pioneers techniques for other students in other schools. Some of the things I have been exposed to: project work, attachments, poly courses, presentations, scheduling, research, etc etc. Are things that eventually are made available to other children, as the approach is better refined, as the goals and the possibilities are made clearer.

Sometimes, even the programmes that are implemented for school children these days, are not as good as the ones we had back then, because the understanding of the goals of these programmes are lost together with the motivated teachers that are unable to pass on their accumulated knowledge. Breaucracy, standardization, these are things present in the Singapore school system, that the GEP, as a result of it's size, is able to do away with.

How much of the GEP is about academics? Not much at all. Any student who wishes to take A level Mathematics in Primary school, can purchase study aids, tution teachers, assesment books from the market. That is missing the point of the GEP (IMHO). The GEP is a philosophical, enlightened exploration of the possibilities of education, one that acts as the moral soul of a huge huge system. One that gives much, and expects much as well.

Everyone lives to answer a question, and the question that I chose to attempt to answer over my 7 short years as a GEP student, is the question of Education. A question I asked my literature teacher in Sec 1 was, what is education for? Is it for our good, or for the country's good? Are we trained so that we can fit into industry, or are we taught about living as human beings?

The mainstream system is competitive. It's about streaming, it's about standardized tests, it's a conditioned reflex to life. Let us go study what's in the textbook. Let us go memorize. Let us go do a hundred MCQ questions to do well on the next standardized test. So that in the eventual future, we can afford/apply for; this this this this.

Is that what life is about? A never ending series of challenges? Of hard work, promotion, and more hard work?

The GEP system is competitive too. In a slightly different way. Everyone has things they like. In a small class of 25, we may have as much as 5 different groups working on art, literature, science, math, language. There are geniuses, and there are others who just seek a little flavour in their lives. There are people who compete against the rest of the world, on their mastery of their subject field at their age. And there are people who just pause, and take in a little of what their friends share in class, resynthesize it, and make it understandable for the rest of us.

What I took away from the GEP, was not a path, or a map to success. What I learned, was that there are individual interests in every person's soul. Passions, that when reignited, may burn brighter than any carrot or stick can incite.

Being gifted, is not about the hard work mastering subjects that may have no teacher. It's not about being away from family at a young age, in school, working and researching your pet projects. It's not about lacking in social skills. (I think most GEP students have more social skills. We just need similar minds) It's not about doing well at standardized tests.

It's about making the most of this spark of life that we've been given. It's about breathing fresh air, and being passionate again about life. It's about opening up new possibilities. It's about finding a sense of hope. Because when you can see all the flaws in life, it's all about hoping for the best, and working away at it, one chip at a time.

posted by Downhere. @ 11:27 am